Will a basket or a cart determine how healthy your grocery choices are?
From Joe: When you are shopping to eat healthy, does how you hold your items make a difference in the kinds of items you select?
Consumer Reports reporter Maggie Shader would answer “Yes!”
She cites a study which found that carrying your items in a basket leads you to make unwise choices. Carrying items in a basket …
somehow encourages you to choose smaller, easier rewards (also known, in this study, as “vices”), while extending your arm, as when you push a cart, has the opposite effect…the simple act of holding a basket can trigger a desire for instant gratification, which overrides long-term goals. And here I thought I was being smart always grabbing a basket because I would be limiting my purchases to what fit in the smaller space and therefore forcing myself to buy what I needed and not waste space on frivolous cravings.
Her report includes a link to a PDF of the entire research article.